Bullied female MPs are determined to win the war on trolls - including those in the Labour party

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The debate on Britain’s looming involvement in the Syrian conflict has so far been rather a bitter affair. David Cameron lashed out at “terrorist sympathisers” on both sides of the house voting against airstrikes, undermining what had been an attempt by Downing Street to get some kind of political consensus.

But while Jeremy Corbyn rightly demanded an apology, his ability to take the moral high ground is somewhat questionable, because he too has deployed some not-so-veiled threats to try and see off sedition in his own ranks.

There would, he said, be “no hiding place” for Labour MPs backing a war that would lead to innocent victims.

"Instead it’s been left to more junior party figures to show them how it’s done."

Party leaders need to raise the tone. Because while they profess to condemn the trolls and the bullies, they risk – intentionally or not – giving them encouragement with the kind of rhetoric they’re spitting out.

Instead it’s been left to more junior party figures to show them how it’s done. Step forward troll-hater Stella Creasy. Before even making up her mind how to vote, the Labour MP for Walthamstow had been on the receiving end of some appalling abuse - and not just from the usual suspects on Twitter.

She highlighted comments by Asim Mahmood, a Labour councillor in Walthamstow, who said any MP who supported the “killing of innocents in this way should automatically go through a trigger ballot for reselection”.

Jeremy CorbynCredit:
PA

Ms Creasy’s response was typically forthright, calling “such intimidation…completely unacceptable”, and making clear she had no intention of being “bullied by a sitting Walthamstow Labour councillor with the threat of deselection if I don’t do what he wants”.

She even tweeted that she was forced to leave a parliamentary debate to check on her staff, after being informed that people were phoning her office to abuse them. Protesters have even been to her house, with one suggesting on Facebook that was fair game because “she has no children to upset”.

Liz Kendall, who stood for the Labour leadership earlier this year, got a tweet from someone calling himself “Comrade Grintz”, demanding “a final solution to purge Blairite scum” from the party.

For christs sake - I want to listen to debate in chamber but people ringing my office abusing my staff so dipping out to check ok! #syria

Hull MP Diana Johnson posted on Facebook that she was “saddened” to have been sent an anonymous email by someone claiming to be a Labour party member, warning that MPs who backed air strikes would face being deselected.

Hard-left members – and there are many more of them now than there were before Mr Corbyn’s election – would, the email declared, move no confidence votes in MPs at constituency meetings. That would enable the grassroots to “wash the blood from their hands of the innocent civilians which the bombs will surely kill”.

And Mr Corbyn hasn’t exactly squashed the rumours, telling Channel 4 News that “any selection, reselection or deselection is at least three years away”.

Pro government Labour backbenchers are clearly living on borrowed time.

There are many who caution not to feed the trolls. Ms Creasy’s tweet about checking on her staff got short shrift from one on Twitter, who declared “MPs just aren’t used to the fact that in the digital age there is a lot more accountability to voters”.

She, Ms Kendall and their colleagues represent a new generation of female MPs who aren’t prepared to take the flak any more. They don’t see why they should roll their eyes and ignore the taunts. And whether or not they back Britain wading into the Syrian war, the battle to ensure a decent, civilised debate is one they’re determined to win.